PARIS – There was a party atmosphere on the streets of Paris on Saturday night. And the occasion was Nuit Blanche, a citywide art festival that ran between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. In six highly different neighborhoods, 50 artists were invited to install temporary art projects, many of which were on the exterior of public buildings or monuments. For this year’s event (the fifth of its kind), the city’s major cultural institutions extended their hours and offered free admission, as did the no. 14 subway line.

It’s enough to chagrin a New Yorker: An all-night art party? Why don’t we have one?

Well, there’s good reason: New York doesn’t need one. All-night art parties pretty much happen all the time in some capacity. But Paris is a city of rules, codes, and closing times, where even an excuse to ignore the copious rule book (ride the subway … all night!) is met with some suspicion. Indeed, the substance and style of Nuit Blanche illustrates an enormous amount about this country. Not only does it expose the state of French visual arts, it also points to the psychological and cultural issues this nation must face.

At an artistic level, the works of Nuit Blanche ranged broadly, but were very often simplistic stabs at installation and video art. At the Place de la Concorde, the obélisque, statues, and fountain were lit up in the shade of blue (known as IKB) created by artist Yves Klein. The luscious blue contrasted brilliantly against the yellow that shines every night on the Eiffel Tower and the Crillon Hotel. The effect was of an illuminated jewel box. It was a stunning sight, though not terribly complex, especially given that the color on the obélisque was significantly more purple than on the rest of the structures. Why so off?

Within the Theatre Musical de Paris — the theater at the Place du Chatelet where our own American Ballet Theatre will perform in February — a large cyclorama commanded the stage. Artist Kimsooja lit this plain field with solid colors that changed gradually while ambient music played over loudspeakers. The contrast of the minimalist screen and the ornate theater provided a dash of something to think about, but mainly there was little to engage with.

Regardless of the quality of the work, the more symbolic, political issue has to do with access. If you didn’t already know what pieces of art to look for, or what neighborhood to go to, or even that Nuit Blanche was happening, you might have gone about your business here without ever knowing.

This was clear on very practical levels.A small informational booklet — published by the office of Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris and a prime mover behind the project — was distributed only on Saturday, hours before the start time. The newspapers had printed small guides already, and there was decent press coverage in the days prior. But even asking the locals didn’t really help: One American fashion reporter told me he knew more about the event than his hotel concierge did.

Indeed, it was an American who first showed me the book. Bob Mohl, an ex-pat who lives on a houseboat on Seine, was conducting a monthly gathering of friends on the Pont des Arts to look at the full moon and go to some of the art events. He had grabbed a couple copies of the booklet to give out: “You would think they’d put them everywhere.”

Perhaps if there were a single corporate sponsor for the printing of the book, it might have been more widely distributed. There were, however, sponsors for specific exhibits. Co-curator Jerome Sans described the public to private ratio of funding for the entire project as 60% to 40%. An article in Le Monde reported the figures as 1.5 million euros from the government and 500,000 euros in private sponsorship.

With all those euros, one less installation and about 400 more signs would have gone a long way. For even with book in hand, getting around required detective work. One highlight of the night was a large-scale installation at the Bibliotèque François Mitterrand (the French national library), which contained a work by the talented lighting designer Thierry Dreyfus, who specializes in fashion shows, music by Placebo, and an improvised music performance by New York-based composer Henry Scars Struck. Because I had anticipated writing about the installation, I had researched the way there. A very good thing indeed. After getting out of the subway in the suburbs, there were no signs to tell you where to go or what you were seeing once — or if — you arrived at the site. Presumably, the book would inform you.

Paris is a city where the minutia of life — such as where and how you can hail a taxi — are determined. But it took the city five years to bring Nuit Blanche to this level: More than one resident told me that the night was better organized and more accessible than in the past.Five years?

The implications of this reticence to welcome or assist play out on a larger, cultural level: In this city, if you don’t already know, you’re left out and made to feel ignorant. That’s a condition that manifestly breeds resentment in the long run.

Credit is due, however, to the organizers for using contemporary art to bring people together in a public fashion. The curators of the event, Jerome Sans and Nicolas Bourriand, insisted, for example, that the neighborhood of La Goutte d’Or in the 18th arrondissement be one of the areas with sponsored art works.

“It’s always the one forgotten or passed over. It’s the last real village in town,” Mr. Sans said, adding that the neighborhood could be compared to Harlem or Brooklyn prior to the last 10 years.

Additionally, this project serves the goal of advancing French contemporary art, which has a long way to go. As Mr. Sans himself puts it, “We are two decades behind. France is just now starting a new contemporary scene.”

It’s a hopeful sentiment, but there is evidence to support it. The city’s annual art fair, Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, is returning to the Grand Palais for the first time in 10 years. And though the art market is small here, there is growth among those who are trying to cultivate the scene. At Art Generation, a gallery in La Marais that shows the work of more than 1,000 artists at prices that range between 25 euros and 2,500 euros, co-owner Stephen Joannon has already opened a second gallery since 2005. And he’s planning a third in Geneva. “The galleries here don’t take a lot of French artists. That’s why we take them. We get Americans buying here because they can’t afford art in New York.”

If art is a reflection of a culture, then there is a lesson to be learned from the Parisian art scene: France is simmering with ideas, and it’s just now sorting out what to do with them.